The Smokies

After our wonderful time in Murphy, NC, we wanted to move to the other side of the Smoky National Park and picked Townsend, TN, a small town with a decent campground nearby Cade's Cove, a spot we definitely wanted to visit again.  We figured it had been at least 20 years since we had been there before.  

It was funny as we got closer to Townsend, I mentioned to Jan there was a Bronco II, not a vehicle you see that often since it was discontinued in 1990.  We went another few miles and I see 2 more!  Huh?  Then another couple, followed by 4 more?!?!?  Turned out there was a big get together for all Bronco's in Townsend when we arrived, I have never seen so many Bronco II's ever, and didn't know there were so many of them.  Anyway, we pulled into our campground, Big Meadow Family Campground, a pretty nice place, well maintained, completely full, tons of Bronco's, but quite pricey.  But definitely the nicest in the immediate area.  We arrived on a Friday, spent a quiet evening and it rained all that night, all day Saturday into Sat night.  But that's okay once in a while, it's nice to just hunker down, chill out, and Jan even made corned beef and cabbage on our rainy, cool day.  Even better we had delicious reubens and really splurged on a Guinness for lunch the following day!

Starting to clear

We took big loop up through Pigeon Forge, OMG, it has turned into a mini Las Vegas, insane!  Then up to Sevierville, back around through Gatlinburg, no sign of any pandemic there, the streets were as crowded as ever, then a cut through the park back to Townsend.  We found a nice spot for coffee along a river, a nice day.

Our coffee spot

Even caught a bunch of kayakers getting out of the water

We waited until Monday for great weather, and thought it wouldn't be crowded in Cade's Cove, being as it was a weekday and way before the season, wrong, wrong, wrong.  Lines and lines of cars, and of course even with signs absolutely everywhere saying, 'Do not stop on the roadway, use the turnoffs," do I even have to say anything more:-(  It was a gorgeous day, and we weren't in any hurry so we just went with the flow, at least as much as I am able.

Turkey all over, with this Tom strutting his stuff

We took a walk up to one of the restored cabins.

The view the cabin enjoyed

The first bear we saw.  The ranger said even though it looks like a baby, it was on its own.
He said once they get to a year old they separate from momma

The austere interior of the Primitive Baptist Church

And our second bear

We made our way along the one way road to the Becky Cable house to where the park service has moved several other buildings to show what life was like back then.

The Becky Cable house

A grain barn

The grist mill

We continued around to get back to the picnic area for lunch and came upon the last cabin on the tour, the idyllic Carter Shields cabin built in the 1880's.

We had a nice picnic along a stream, the weather could not have been nicer!

Jan caught me funny, I am really enjoying our lunch:-)

We meandered back to the campground over a nice one way dirt road that climbed up and out of the cove.  Enjoyed our last evening in Townsend and bid it farewell.

No Whistle and a Wonderful Discovery

Hallelujah!  No whistle, the caulking did the trick!  Live and learn I guess.  

So before we left we had a few more things to accomplish, Jan got her final okay, finally after a whole year for her dental implant, thanks to Covid.  We met with friends John and Diane for a great get together.  Intense corn hole competition, great food, and a wonderful visit, and yes I forgot to take pictures:-)  Then it was time to get the truck tires rotated and balanced, and serendipity, they found a nail in one of the tires, so that saved us a bunch of hassle down the road.

We left Atlanta and headed north a bit, we wanted to go to a campground we have been trying to get to outside of Murphy, NC.  We had stayed there one time almost 20 years ago and remembered it as nice but a bit overgrown.  We arrived and it was wonderful, it is under new ownership and they have done a splendid job cleaning it up and making it like a beautiful park with a small creek running right through the campground and along side a larger river, the Valley River.  Our site backed right up on the small creek so we could listen to the song of babbling water, so peaceful.  North Georgia and western North Carolina are absolutely beautiful, especially in the spring, mountains are abundant and surprisingly tall, flowers, green everywhere, it is lush and gorgeous, couple that with incredible fishing opportunities makes it a very worthwhile visit.

Our awesome site!

Valley River right in the campground

The Nantahala River is nearby, which is home to the Nantahala Outdoor Center a rafting and kayaking center.  The upper end of the Nantahala is a fisherman's paradise, which unfortunately we did not partake of this visit as NC only sells a 10 day non-resident fishing license and the only warm day was our first day, so we will postpone that adventure until next year.  We have fished it before and had a great and productive experience.  But we did go and have lunch along the river.  Another huge plus for this time of year as there are almost no people here!

Nice lunch spot, huh?

Then just as we were finishing, along came the
Great Smoky Mountains Railroad

Then as an aside to those of you that have seen my efforts at fly tying, a mayfly, a Quill Gordon I believe, came by and I wanted to show the insect as well as a representation of the fly.  Mayflies are a huge part of the diet of trout.

We took advantage of the beautiful day to drive around and cook some shrimp on the barbie.  Come on, you knew there would have to be food pictures:-)

Cold weather moved in, 26df, although still clear and nice, and since I'm on a roll with food pics we went to one of our favorite BBQ places, Rib Country  Always good and always crowded.

I should mention one other thing, Jan and I are fully vaccinated, so are moving towards normalcy.  And what I wanted to say is that in FL, GA, NC, and now TN, we are seeing few masks except where mandated by a business, and even then not so much, gatherings of people all over, in fact here in Townsend, TN where we happen to be now, they are having a huge Bronco gathering, hundreds and hundreds of people and more Bronco II's than I have ever seen in one place!  We have seen only a sporadic few with masks on outdoors.  We have eaten inside for the first time and have continued to do it and will continue to do it.  I am not saying we are bulletproof, but we feel getting vaccinated gets you something tangible and real and allows a substantial return to normal.  I'll get off the soapbox now.

We took a nice 2 mile hike along the Valley River, and had coffee along that small part of the Nantahala that I mentioned fishing on.  We had a wonderful relaxing time in yet another beautiful area of our country.

Our hike

What a spot for coffee!

We had to bid farewell to head farther north to Townsend, TN, although we did make a reservation for 2 weeks next year:-)

I Should Just Name This Blog, Change:-)

We decided it was so nice at Grand Oaks, we would dawdle a little before our appointments in Atlanta, then my dentist appt got changed, so we weren't under pressure at all.  Here's a few more pictures of how idyllic it was.

So we really took our time getting to Atlanta, and along the way decided we would probably cut our time a little shorter.  When we did arrive, the place was a zoo, can you say party central?!

I should explain a bit about our ever-changing outlook as to campgrounds.  People like us who full time and have for as long as we have, almost 17 years now, evaluate campgrounds a little differently from folks who are "camping".  We aren't on vacation, we enjoy doing various things where we are, but by and large we are just living life.  I explained in previous posts that this pandemic changed things drastically in the RV world.  Tons and tons of folks bought RV's for the first time, filled up the campgrounds, and know literally nothing about RVing, campground etiquette, etc, and since the schools are closed for a good part, there are tons of kids everywhere.  Now don't get the wrong idea, we like kids, but we don't like screaming kids running through our campsite with no supervision, the parents figure the entire campground is their playground and since they themselves don't understand the etiquette of not going through other campsites, they don't know any better.  In Florida at our winter park you rarely see kids, maybe grandkids come to visit now and then, but this year at least 10 families were in the park all the time with kids everywhere, very unusual for our "old folks" park:-)  Another Covid phenomenon.  Well when we pulled in here to Allatoona Landing, we had to wait for 4 kids to move so we could park, and the place was full.  This place which we have been coming to now for more than 20 years is becoming on a par with a state park, smoldering fires all over the park, kids everywhere, large gatherings of family and friends, noise into the night, etc.  Yes, I know I sound like a curmudgeon.  But we go to great lengths when picking campgrounds that appeal to our desires, like anyone would.  One of the problems here in Atlanta is there are very few campgrounds in the entire area let alone where we need to be, so it is disheartening that each time we come, we want to get in and out as soon as we can.  So we did.  We cut our time to an absolute minimum, will go up to NC and Tenn for a while, then head west.  Change, remember?  Okay enough of the whining.

So I mentioned that our truck windshield got broken somehow getting to Josam's, but we managed to get an appt to have that replaced, but Murphy wasn't done with us just yet.  We were getting ready to leave Grand Oaks finally, and our routine is to start the coach, let it come up on the air, and meanwhile I unhook the water, sewer, and electric, when I finish, it is usually up and ready for the slides to come in, I signal and Jan brings them in.  Well when I unhook the water, the water keeps flowing out of our hose, this is an indication of a check valve failure, it happens with some regularity, sometime it goes a month, 6 months, or 2 weeks, you never know, but I carry half a dozen of these cheap plastic valves and it literally takes me less than 5 minutes to replace it with no tools needed, so I signaled to Jan to shut it off, and when she did I heard, what an air leak?!?!?  After all our time at Josam's, there is an air leak?!?  We track it down, it is really loud, so we find it easily, it is our tag axle regulator, a valve that sets the amount of down pressure and therefore the weight the tag axle carries.  It isn't critical for the drive as we can produce plenty of air to make up for the leak, but it has to be fixed soon.

The bad valve

I went onto a couple of the forums I frequent to see if anyone knew the part number or where to get one, we couldn't see any indication of numbers on our very dirty valve.  Sure enough I got some quick info and ordered the one that seemed correct.  It came in in two days, picked it up, and went to install it.  We didn't pull the old one first as we didn't want there to be NO air in the tag, and what do we find, our new part isn't correct, it is about twice the size of ours, and no way to install it, so now what?  Since the old valve is now off, I take it and run to NAPA to see if they have something similar, they do although it's very light duty, bring it back, install it and all the fittings leak like a sieve.  Okay, slow down, we clean the old valve up and do find part numbers, find out that we can get the correct part in 2 days, so we order it, then I go to NAPA and buy all new fittings and even some extra air line just in case.  They took back the wrong one, and we got the correct OEM one.  We had to wait one more day to get the mounting nut for the regulator, why isn't that included?  Any way all in now and done.  

New valve, no leaks

Then, of course, one more thing that is driving Jan and I crazy.  

So some back ground, back in this post, http://billjansexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/2021/03/update-with-only-3-weeks-to-go.html  I talk about recaulking the top of the windshield and how this year I put the absolute minimum amount of caulk in the gap to see if it would hold up better.  Now this is where it gets a little crazy, we drove up to Talin RV to have our awning fabric replaced after I caulked the windshield, all the way up and all the way back all good.  Then when we went to Josam's we experienced a whistle that seems to be coming from the right top of the windshield, it seemed to only be there between 45 and 55 mph and especially when in a right turn, hmmmm.  By the time we stopped in Americus on the way north, the whistle was worse, almost constant.  We racked our brains to try to figure what was different, we even stopped along the road and Jan went up on the roof to see if something was loose, no.  I look very carefully and do find what I think could be the problem, when I pulled off our windshield cover one of the snaps had broken leaving a piece of the snap behind, so I convinced myself that was the cause of the whistle, I smugly told Jan that was the end of our noise.  Ha, if anything getting here to Atlanta it was even worse!

So thinking it just had to do with the minimal caulking job, I got out the ladder and caulked it again, this time the way I used to do it.  We'll see what happens.

So Murphy, what else is lurking for us???

Meanwhile we got our dentist appointments taken care of, and our doctor appointments, and even got the truck windshield replaced.  

Now we are wrapping things up and will soon head north.  We got to see some friends which we didn't last spring with the Covid.  

Nice lunch and visit with Brett and Sandra

It's wonderful that things are getting back to normal.  Northward bound, I'll let you know how the whistle works out:-)